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Why My Head Is Banjaxed

Office worker Ross Martin is an Englishman living and working in Ireland.

Now.

So he is.

Ross writes:

One thing that has always struck me about Irish people is their incessant need to continually fill the air with mindless chitter-chatter.

Now this would be fine if I could understand what everyone was saying but a lot of the time some of the sayings and phrases have me scratching my head. So ‘comere till I tell ya’ my take on some of the best ones I have picked up

As I’m writing this article ‘It is after getting very cold in the office’. Why put ‘after’ in front of a sentence? It makes no sense to me.

Well apparently (after some long winded research and advice) this has something to do with the formation of a peculiar vestige of Gaelic Irish and English so I suppose I better keep quiet about that one…Blame the British!

Saying ‘Now’ after every little thing you do. What the hell is that about? Makes himself a cup of tea, sits down at desk and drinks said cup of tea….’Now’. In the office I hear about 50 of these a day.!

Just drink your tea in silence will ya for ‘Jaysus’ sake (a constant reminder of the great one is also an inevitable anecdotal expression you hear on a daily basis)

Terms of endearment for people you may or may not know are plentiful and getting to grips with some of these is a bit of a challenge. Without prior research this is what I came up with:

‘Yer Wan’ – The girl over there or the girl I am talking about.

‘Yer Man’ – The man over there or any male I have ever had any contact with.

‘Oul Wan’ – Your mother or any old woman I’m talking about.

‘Oulfella’ – Your Father or any old man I’m talking about

These are all fairly easy to remember but the one that always gets me is ‘You see yer wan there now, she has notions’. Now god only knows what that means but my rough translation would be: Irish people should always remain humble and never think or behave above their station.

Half way through writing the article and an urgent query comes in, I ask Stephanie to have a look for me and she says she’ll do it ‘Now in a second’.

So now I am sitting here perplexed as to when she will do it. Will it be now or will it be in a second? ‘Jaysus’ only knows. I’ll just sit here and hope for the best, ‘You know that kinda way?’

Anyway, I had a good old laugh to myself writing this ‘So I did’ but the research and all the ‘Messages’ in between has left me ‘banjaxed’ which is ‘Gas craic’ for all involved.

I’ve been told I speak with an Irish twang when I go back to London to visit family and they think I will lose my cockney accent but ‘I will in me hole’ as I must remember my roots.

If you enjoyed reading the article can I get a ‘Yeah yeah yeah yeah (sucks in breath)’ from any of you? ‘Good man/woman yourself’ for reading. I’m off to watch the Snapper for further inspiration.

I lived in England a few years and on return realised for the first time just how much incessant goddamn chatter goes on around here. Especially in th’office.

Being that Irish people are also quite unwilling to discuss meaty/difficult/grownup things with people they don’t know well, most of this chatter is so inane it sometimes makes me want to weep. I’d prefer a deafening silence to endless – ENDLESS – peregrinations about the weather, the traffic, and…well, that’s it. The GAA, every now and then, perhaps.

Other times, I find it funny and endearing. But to be honest, most of the time it is textbook neurotic.

I had a German boyfriend once, and his favourite Irishism was ‘a shower of b*stards’. It’s actually poetic when you think about it.

Repeated use of first name in formal settings when uncomfortable: ‘Look it, Sean’ or ‘Look it, Miriam’
It’s politicians’ favorite on RTE, conveying:
– fake extension of generosity towards interviewer in disclosing ‘real’ root cause of something, attempt to win trust
– gentle display of being irritated by question
– subtle display of being ‘in the know’, hence invitation to end the discussion, since everyone know what it is about, but nobody can say it straight on because it’s ‘sensitive’
– [a few more, I am sure]
Irish colloquials are an art form. BS John Moynes could create a comic book on these. The size of War & Peace.

Well it certainly says it’s an article a few times. Does that qualify it as an article? This fella now seems to have a fierce struggle with understanding people. I imagine he’s gas when he gets going about the hot press.

Rascim : the belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races…..

“One thing that has always struck me about Irish people is their incessant need to continually fill the air with mindless chitter-chatter.” I’m probably more annoyed I read this, boring non-entertaining, unfunny piece!

What is wrong with being amazed by the world? Have you lived overseas before? I’m on my 5th country and counting (oo look at me). You can read as many blogs/articles whatever before you go, nothing will completely prepare you being there until you are there. This is no more than what every immigrant does, which is “hey, isn’t that interesting/weird, what’s that about, I find it confusing but I’ll work it out, it’s not you guys, it’s me”. I see my own experience in this, nothing faux about it.

I’m never surrendering ‘I’m after doing x, y, z, etc.’ It describes your position with perfect preciseness. i mean ‘I’ve done x, y, z’ – but, what? In the distant past? Near past? Consider the difference between ‘I feel in that lake’ and ‘I’m after falling in that lake’. The second is so much more dynamic.

Seamus Heaney’s Hiberno-English Beowulf begins with ‘Now’ – the original Old English word is hwaet’, and this was traditionally, in English, translated as ‘what ho’, or something similar (like ‘listen up’, or ‘hark’, or something like that). So it’s a bit like ‘tally ho’.

I don’t think I could like without exclaiming ‘NOW’ before I begin anything. It involves everyone in the room in your dull task/sandwich/opinion.

Fukkenn offen homeum then. Problem solved.
Although you come.across as the type.that would whinge anywhere.
Hopefully one day they will make it an Olympic event and there will be a value to your sprouting

there’s a little bit of an air of guffawing at the silly paddies about it. i dont think he means it like that at all, but we’ve had it for so long that it grates on us a bit. so dont be offended by the backlash you’re getting, Ross, we’ve just been having brits come over laughing at us for a looooooong time now.

The Irish love having a go at the English (look at any sports event here) and then get totally freaked out should they do the same in return. That’s all that is going on here, harmless banter, Ross is obviously not responsible for whatever offensive stereotypes that were cast in the past, therefore to try and play that card in this thread is fuppin ridiculous.

She couldn’t have done it as she’d have to come up with her own material – no relentless copy and pasting. Also, any critisism would have brought on one of her brattish tantrums and she’d be fking everyone from a height ;-}

I’ve loads to say.. Catherine is an aul moany do-gooder. I talk about tax credits for mothers on maternity leave on one of your posts (that it’s presumed they’re getting full pay) and she hasn’t a bull’s notion of what I’m talking about (either did you by the looks of it) . She wants to tell me about the joys of babies, of looking into their eyes and seeing the innocence and some other sorta nonsense. Go sell crazy some place else like. CTRL C, CTRL v for revenue and citizen’s information is to help ye out, ye twits. Do I get a thanks for it?

On that particular thread you rambled on bitterly about women you’d worked with having baby after baby, being paid maternity leave and then leaving while poor old you had no paid leave for being a singleton.

I love children in general, not just my own, you wouldn’t understand that as it doesn’t involve ‘me, myself and I’ mentality – you’d actually have to give simething of yourself other than bile.

Go back and read it again. Tax dear. Mostly about tax. I didn’t agree with how tax for mothers on maternity leave was being worked out by revenue. I already explained what they were doing, but you can’t understand it, can you?

To spell that out for you, that would be me being supportive of mothers. Learn to just read the words in front of you. Not what you imagine. And I’m not single. Trot along now.. It’s great you sprouted a few out. How’d ya do it at all? Well done you.

You copy and pasted a few bits about tax- whoopedee doodah – go you!!!!

What you’d like to be forgotten is the nasty attitude you began with on that thread – no matter how much you copy and pasted after your little selfish rant, you couldn’t backtrack and erase the dark angle you’d originally commenced on.

Try and get your wee head around it. You might be able to pass on useless information to some women sometime, instead of the ‘ I had babies, they’re wonderful, I love all babies, you wouldn’t understand’ nonsense

See when people understand if they’ve been taxed too much, they can get it back. They don’t come looking for you to give it back to you like. Ja get it?

By the way, clawback clauses have been added to some women’s employment contracts, so you don’t see situations where women have a few babies then leave a company.. it’s considered fair practice. Not dark angles. That means, they usually have to put in a certain amount of time with the company.

There’s nuance involved in most situations. It’s not all black and white. You can be supportive of most women availing of maternity leave, but critical of some scenarios – i.e. the ones who have back to back pregnancies, then leave a company.

It’s nothing to do with having a family… it’s maternity leave benefit. Taxable since July 2013.

And on what basis would you say most people with families are familiar with ‘it’? You’re starting to sound a bit condescending about having spouted a few out again..

‘It’ being the tax implications for women getting maternity leave benefit, made taxable since 2013, and on the presumption from the revenue commissioners that women receive full pay, therefore they are deducting their tax credit from their maternity benefit and affecting their standard cut off point?

You’re full of sh*te Catherine. Any pregnant women I’ve talked to isn’t aware of it. Most people haven’t a bull’s notion about tax.

Translation:
You’re all part of a group made up of untrustworthy and opportunistic people who are carefully looking around and waiting for the right moment to strike with their tongues which will possibly cause problems for others and most likely yourselves, all of you.
Yes It’s true that you are…. rrrr…. rrr…. etc.